


dreams stop feeling invisible

by Lunas_Little_Noodle



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Confessions, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Late Night Conversations, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Spider-Man Noir Needs a Hug, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Peter Parker, Trans Spider-Man Noir, Understanding, can't believe i nearly forgot this tag i mean the working title was "trans noir because i CAN", or rather conversation, peni is willing to provide, tbh i just loved this movie so much i had to write something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17658062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunas_Little_Noodle/pseuds/Lunas_Little_Noodle
Summary: sometimes the only time you can have certain conversations is at in-betweens, transient periods, the edges of days. some truths are easier shared like secrets.or: was i the only one to notice how adorable noir and peni's relationship was? no. am i the only person to write about it? also no. is that going to stop me? you guessed it,





	dreams stop feeling invisible

**Author's Note:**

> these lot are owned by sony and marvel, i'm just having fun!
> 
> this is for all of you out there writing trans spider-people: i love you, bitch. i ain't ever gonna stop loving you, bitch
> 
> (title from invincible by aminé)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **[summary changed 24.4.19]**

It's 1:49am, the small stove clock blinking in what he remembers is red. The overhead light is turned low, barely strong enough to illuminate the kitchen, but strong enough Peter can't see into the garden for its reflection. He can't see outside, but he can hear it, wind and rain relentlessly beating against the glass, and the rest of Miles' New York. The skies had opened only minutes after their arrival the previous afternoon, courtesy of a super-villain easily defeated by the six of them, but the storm had not finished with her and the assorted henchmen, the rain slipping into a natural pattern and continuing to fall  _fortissimo_ ever since.

He refocuses on his gloves, clasped between shabby grey hands so at odds in Aunt May's honey-coloured kitchen, and continues to scrub at the bloodstains. His duster is discarded downstairs, but his sweater remains on, as much for warmth as for the breadth it gives his shoulders. His mask sits perched on the drying rack, freshly cleaned, Uncle Benjamin's aviator goggles glint in the low light.

The rain doesn't lash the window so much as it lazily, unceasingly beats it, lacking a pattern beyond the swells of the wind sending it stronger and weaker. Invisible, but for its constant noise. Peter catches sight his reflection, stiffens. Tilts his head so his glasses shield his eyes.

His face is a spook in the window, hair falling across its forehead. Playing the Spider-Man has left him with a distinct visage: a crooked nose, and deep scars curving up his right cheek, through his left brow and temple, splitting the side of his lips. The kitchen light is just bright enough, white enough, to catch the edges of the numerous smaller ones scattered across the rest of his skin, sending them from their usual near invisible state into silver relief. Every once in while he'll get caught at the mirror, wondering. What he could've looked like without them, his only daily make up a contoured jaw and pencilled eyebrows instead of a Pan-Cake mask. Not that he's wearing any now, though, far too liable to smear and stain the leather of the mask as he's learned.

Peter gradually becomes aware of his body, of himself, again. Of the rest of the kitchen. Has the rain gotten quieter? He wrings out the gloves, pleased when the water runs clear, and places them next to his mask, water beading along the larger, more noticeable scars criss-crossing his hands. He dries them with the dish towel. Turns off the tap. Meets his reflection's eyes.

"Peter?"

He starts, spider-sense blaring too late as his fists come up, spinning to face the bruno, face— Peni. He drops his hands.

She's dwarfed by the doorframe, plastered by the rain, relentless even during the short walk from the spider shed to the house. She slowly shuts the door behind her, a quiet snap that cuts off the worst of the wind. They tease her for working so late, and she takes it well, but seeing her hadn't occurred to him.

Slowly, Peter raises a hand to his face, and the feel of skin against skin confirms what he already knew.

Peni is seeing his face, his hands. No mask. Seeing him, just him,  _nothing_ but him. No jaw, no brows, no pomade. He's frozen, in place, suspects she might be too, both of them watching, neither of them moving.

She shivers.

Peter turns sharply, heading out of the kitchen to the linen closet. Retrieves a towel. Listens, senses heightened almost unbearably, for any reaction.

When he's got a towel wrapped around Peni's shoulders, and slowly retreated to the kitchen table, eyes darting desperately between her and the still-drying mask and gloves, she seems to refocus. Peni briskly dries her hair and what she can of her clothes, before she joins him, not noticing or more likely ignoring his hissed intake of breath.

They sit in silence for a time, Peni examining his face and Peter torn between desperately looking at his hands or at the gear still drying in the dish rack.

"I didn't realise you wore glasses," she offers, breaking the uncommonly-stilted silence between them. Peter's grateful for the reprieve.

"Yeah, I think I'm the only one of us to," he says, pulling off his glasses to examine the circular lenses. He starts badly when Peni snatches them from his hands and holds them up to her own face.

"Not many people in my dimension wear glasses, mostly just hipsters and antiquarians," she says, passing them back. Peter puts them on and his vision sharpens just in time to see her wince. "Although I don't understand how you can see out of those at all!"

He chuckles despite himself, is sent when she smiles herself. "How can't you?" he asks in mock-bewilderment, taking them off again just to squint over-exaggeratedly at her. He meets her eyes when they go back on, glances at his hands. "What's got you up in the black?" he asks, looking back up, and Peni's eyes snap from his hands to his face.

"Uh– I've been studying the resultant interdimensional energy fluctuations from our travel today with Miguel," Peni says, and starts gesturing wildly with her hands, illustrating something Peter can't see. "I know we explained it to you when we gave you your transponder, but it's still so  _interesting_! You realise instead of the stabilising aspect on the watches"—she tries to gesture to the one on her wrist with the same hand—"preventing fluctuations entirely, they keep open an energy stream that allows for small variations, and that's actually what makes it possible for us to be here without glitching!" Peni leaps onto her chair to better blow her wig, and something in Peter's chest tightens in pride at the sight of it. "Back during the collider incident, when it powered off it completely closed all of our connections, which is why we kept glitching, our atoms didn't have the energy from our own universes. But it's not enough energy to create an independent portal, that still depends on us flooding the system with power, so you don't have to worry about any villains following you through!"

Peter feels his face fall, heart seizing for an entirely different reason as he considers Peni, Miles, any of the others having to face any of his regular goons. He knows intellectually they're all spider-people, any of them would almost certainly hold their own just fine, but as Peni scrambles off her chair at his reaction, he's struck again by how small she is. Remembers her shriek, audible even through her mech, as Scorpion attacked, and vows for the hundredth time to protect her.

Peni throws herself into his lap, and his arms tighten instinctively around her. "Hey, hey, Peter it's ok, I just said they won't be able to follow you, no need to worry about me, SP//dr and I can take care of anything—" she's babbling at him, still shivering in the low-lit kitchen, and Peter hugs her tightly.

"I dig, I dig," he reassures her, and himself. "But promise me Peni, you ever see any of my usual drifters and think for a moment you can't handle it, you make tracks. No," he interrupts as she opens her mouth to protest. She shuts it mutinously. "I know you and SP//dr make a great team, but you're not in that zoot suit all the time." he pokes her shoulder, making his point, and she huffs a laugh. "So please, promise me."

Peni slips off his lap, meets his eyes with her own large ones. "I promise," she says solemnly, and holds out her pinky. " _Yubikiri_ , Peter." The word's unfamiliar, but the gesture's one he knows.

"They still have these in the future?" he teases, smiling despite himself.

"Pe- _ter_ ," she whines, smiling as well, and he loops his pinky with hers. He freezes a moment later, staring at the difference between his and Peni's uncovered hands that he'd somehow managed to forget. Except a moment after that he realises Peni is still cold, and that's more important than any discomfort on his part.

"Well I don't know about you," he says, standing. "But I could use a hot chocolate with weather like this." He jerks his thumb at the window. "You want any?"

Peni nods, taking his empty chair and watching him over the back of it as he sets the kettle boiling. It's quiet in the kitchen again, the rain's uneven tempo interrupted only by the clicking of the hob and the quite clatter of the spoon as Peter painstakingly prepares two mugs with instant powder.

He takes the kettle off before it whistles, stirring as he adds the water to each mug. Brings them both to the table, places one in front of Peni. Settles in her original chair, pausing only to drape her abandoned towel over the back. They sit for a long moment, silent, comfortable. Peni takes the spoon from her cup, filled with cocoa, and places it on the table so SP//dr can drink as well.

Breaks the silence.

"I... thought you'd look more like the other Peters," she admits quietly. He tries to drink his cocoa, not answer just yet, but it burns his tongue. He puts it down, meets Peni's eyes. But isn't that a question Peter had asked himself more than once, whenever he talks to the older Peter, whenever his eyes catch one of the many pictures of May's own Peter. Why doesn't he look more like the other human Peters is a question he knows the answer to, doesn't want to state it aloud just yet.

"So did I," he settles on instead. "Although…" he drags the word out, Peni leaning forwards in her seat. "I thought I'd get to be a bit more pipped and prettied up the first time you saw my face. I haven't even done my hair." He pushes it out of his forehead, affect the roguish grin he used to use dropping pins at the Black Cat.

She giggles, plays a newshawk with her hands as a camera and peers at him through her fingers. His grin slips into a real smile, and when he tries the hot chocolate again finds it's cooled enough to drink.

He nearly spills it down his front when Peni takes his other hand in hers. She's not looking at him, focused on their hands, and while he doesn't relax, he doesn't pull away either, is silent as she considers his elegant fingers, the scars across his knuckles.

"I thought the rest of you had accelerated healing," she says after a while, long enough Peter has refocused on the gentle beat of the rain. She's not looking at him, eyes on their hands, side by side on the table. He knows she can see the similarities, as well as the differences there.

"Super healing still leaves scars," he tells her gently. Taps the back of her hand, and when she looks at him, shrugs, taps the scar on his cheek once or twice. "But I'd rather have scars from helping folk than help no number at all."

It's not something he's verbalised until now, he realises distantly. Studies the backs of his hands with new eyes. Peni's pulled her own hands back to her, is loosely cradling them on the table. Through the gaps in her fingers, SP//dr is partially visible.

"Sometimes it's just easier to stay in my mech," she says suddenly. She isn't looking at him, addressing the cage of her hands. "The rest of you're all so strong and graceful and tall, and I…" she shrugs, deliberately casual, letting her hands fall apart. SP//dr climbs onto her right arm, and she drapes across the table to talk to them. "Without my mech it's just me and SP//dr, and we're not exactly…" She falls silent, gazing at SP//dr. Peter takes her other hand, smiling softly when she startles.

"What a pair we make, huh?" he says. Takes a sip of his hot chocolate; Peni mirrors him, a bit of weight slipping off her shoulders when she does, and he hides his smile behind his mug.

"So maybe you don't have the strength or the height," he says, ruffling her hair when she pretends to glare at him. "But you're sharp as anything Peni, and in this kinda work that's more valuable than anything else you could have." Meets her eyes. "An' that wasn't from any spider bite, kid, that's all you."

Peni's smile is a bit watery, and she takes another sip of hot chocolate to cover it. The wind is nearly gone, the rain a gentle whisper at the kitchen window. Peni pushes back her hair, and meets his eyes. "You know we love you too, right?" she asks, and Peter sputters into his hot chocolate for a second time.

"What kind of question is that?" he coughs a couple moments later.

Peni doesn't look away. "Peter," she says, flat, and he has to drink half his hot chocolate to clear his suddenly-thick throat. He slides his hands up his face when she continues staring, then lets them fall and meets her eyes.

"Yeah, I know," he says quietly, cheeks dusky grey. "I love you too."

They finish their hot chocolates in comfortable silence, the rain continuing to soften until it's playing  _pianissimo_. Peni's stifling increasingly-larger yawns by the time Peter takes their mugs to the sink, drowsily pillowing her head with her arms. It only takes a short while to wash up, but she's barely stirring by the time he finishes. Peter smiles fondly before looping his arms around her. He pauses to let SP//dr settle themself in her hair, before picking Peni up.

Peter carries her to the bedroom she's sharing with Gwen. The two girls stay in this-universe's Peter's old bedroom whenever they all stay overnight, while he and the other men camp in the surprisingly-warm basement. Gwen is already asleep, having gone to bed at a far more respectable time than the two of them, although he can't bring it in him to mind his insomnia.

It's quick work to tuck Peni into her bed, pulling the covers up. He lingers for a moment when he's finished, before Gwen shifts in her sleep, and he leaves them in peace.

His mask and gloves are dry when he picks them up, the old aviator goggles distorting the reflection of the stove clock. Peter meets his reflection's gaze. Still the same face. But now he thinks of Peni and the others, and it wears a small smile like a warm coat in winter, natural, comfortable. The rain outside has stopped entirely, the stillness of the night calm, lounging at the edges of his senses.

The others are catching cups unchanged from when he left earlier. As he descends the stairs to the basement, one hand clutches the rail, while the other keeps a tight hold on his mask and gloves. Suddenly exhausted, Peter pulls himself into bed, gloves tucked inside his mask, placed safe at the side of the cot.

Perhaps not yet, he thinks sleepily, cocooned in a swathe of blankets, but soon. The barest hint of light from the kitchen window illuminates the basement, the clouds apparently having cleared, draping the three of them in molten silver. Soon.

With morning comes Aunt May knocking on the doorframe to wake them for breakfast. She's haloed by the morning sun, filtering down the stairs, and where Peter, still asleep, has shifted in the night, released his right hand from beneath the blankets, it turns his skin to copper, his scars to soft gold.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i _adored_ into the spider-verse. i can't think of another movie that has touched me so deeply, i've been to see it three times already and if i can catch it on campus i'm going to watch it for a fourth.
> 
> regarding the fic, while i'm drawing on some of my own experience of body dysmorphia and dissociation, i'm not trans, so if i've been insensitive regarding anything in my portrayal of noir please tell me how i can fix it. although when i write noir worrying about being the only trans spider-person i'll tell you now he's not correct. it just so happens the other peter parkers were able to get hormone therapy before much of puberty set in, from their supportive aunt may and uncle ben, and so have more masculine features (this is a better set of universes where hormone therapy is free for everyone).
> 
> there was a lot of research on the 1930s in the making of this fic, such as the Max Factor make-up powder that created an even complexion (the Pan-Cake), and on slang, such as 'dropping pins' for hinting at being gay, and 'blowing your wig' for being excited about something. the latter i've seen in fics already, but what i haven't seen is credit to it being part of Harlem slang, primarily used by poor african americans, which in my headcanon is because of the intersection between queer and black americans as 'fashionable' minorities in the 1920s-30s, Peter would have found a community in one of the speakeasies that catered to a queer and black clientele and thus picked up some of the slang. (for people writing black americans in the 1930s, cab calloway's hepster's dictionary is a _great_ resource for common vernacular! i only used one or two unique terms from there though because peter isn't black himself and while some bleed-over is acceptable, for me to base his entire vocabulary only on black slang would be appropriation and Not On).
> 
> anyway if you want to shout about spiderverse or this fic i'm happy to hear it here or on [tumblr](http://luekskywlkr.tumblr.com/) (@luekskywlker)
> 
> *spider noir voice:* i, uh, love you all


End file.
